This then was her prayer: remembering.
On the last day of the previous summer, she’d been on a scouting mission with a small unit of soldiers. As daylight waned, she’d sat on a hilltop with the calm expanse of the Aegean spread out before her. Her blood-brother Jezrael was there, too, his dark eyes narrowed against the sunset, emphasizing the crooked angle of his nose—a souvenir from their childhood and the day when he had teased her until she kicked him in the face. He was fiddling mindlessly with a frayed strand of red wool that had come undone from his cloak. For a long time, they said nothing, just stared out into the blue.
“I’m going to ask Mena to marry me,” Jezrael finally said into the silence.
Attia took care to keep her face neutral. She’d known the announcement was coming, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“I’ve already spoken to the elders and Mena’s parents. King Sparro has given his blessing.”
Attia gritted her teeth. Even her father had been told before her.
“I’m going to marry her in the spring.” He glanced at Attia. “I’m sorry. I know we always swore that we would never marry. That we would just turn into old, fat, useless warriors together. Like your father and Crius.”
A snort of laughter burst out of Attia before she could stop it.
“They’ve really let themselves go,” Jezrael continued.
Attia had to bite her lip to keep from laughing.
“It’s sad.”
Attia shook her head.
Jezrael’s voice lowered, losing that laughing edge. “She’s the one, Attia. The one I’ve been looking for since … since before I knew I was looking. It’s not enough to say that I love her. I can’t breathe without her.”
Attia turned to look at him. His face was so open and vulnerable, and he looked so hopeful.
“I know, Jez. Of course I know.”
He took a deep breath. “We always said—”
“That doesn’t matter now.”
“Then why are you upset? Talk to me, Attia.”
“It’s just … if you get married…”
He watched her face carefully, and Attia knew the instant he understood. He took her hand in his and squeezed. “You think that if I take a wife, your father will make you take a husband.”
“Jez, I’m not ready for marriage, and I don’t know if I ever will be.”
“Maybe this is part of growing up.”
Attia pulled her hand from his.
“I just want you to be happy,” he said.
“But I am happy. What do I need a man for?”
“Family? Love?”
Attia shook her head. “I have that already.”
“You might change your mind one day, Attia,” he said. “Maybe you’ll find someone—someone strong like you—and you won’t be able to imagine a life without them. Marriage or no, children or no. You’ll find a person who makes you feel whole, and then everything will be different.” He smiled earnestly, and the tension between them eased.
Attia subtly dug her hand into the dirt, scooping up a handful of the dark soil. “Will it really be different?” She threw the dirt at his face.
He ran after her, laughing and shouting as they raced down the hill and across the shoreline. The soldiers watching them smiled.
It was a beautiful memory. One of her last good ones.
But now there were other people, other memories to add. Sabina combing out her hair with gentle hands. Rory wrapping her arms around Attia’s waist with such complete trust. Xanthus holding her with the only comfort she’d found in this damned country. She couldn’t separate that anymore. Her path had never been an easy or a straight one, and as she sat there in the cold with her memories and her fury, the whole world seemed so incredibly broken.
Except for one thing.
She didn’t even have to knock on his door. Xanthus opened it immediately and pulled her close. He’d been waiting for her.
Attia thought she should probably say something—ask about Decimus or the search—but she didn’t want to talk. Instead, she wrapped her arms around him and let her kiss say everything that she couldn’t.
Xanthus’s lips never left hers as he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed. Her hands wandered across the line of his jaw and the cords of his neck while he pulled the pins from her hair, freeing the dark mass to tumble down around her shoulders like a veil.
Attia’s heart was beating so loudly that she almost missed it when he whispered something against her lips. It was a different language, rounded and sweet and fluid like a bubbling brook.
“What does that mean?”
He smiled as he buried a hand in her hair. “I’ll tell you when you’re ready to hear it.” Then he pulled her mouth back to his, and the touch became rougher, more demanding.
Something flared to life inside of Attia, a heat she’d never felt before. She lost herself to Xanthus’s kiss, hardly caring when he twisted her around to lie flat on the bed, his arms braced on either side to hold his weight. The roughness of his hands flooded her senses as he nudged her knees apart and settled between her legs.
“Attia,” he whispered.
At the sound of his voice, awareness came rushing back. For a moment she couldn’t control her breathing or her panic. She must have made some small noise, because Xanthus suddenly became still on top of her.
She wasn’t frightened, exactly. After all, it was just her body. She’d done worse things with it—she’d used it to kill and to maim. She’d used her knowledge of sword and staff and bow to revel in death. But maybe, she thought, maybe I’m not meant for this. Maybe I am only a warrior, a killer. Maybe I can never truly be a part of a beautiful thing.
The immensity of such a terrible possibility weighed down on her chest until she thought she might collapse from so many broken promises. What was she that now, with a man she could respect and adore, she seemed so incapable of love?
Xanthus waited for her, patient and undemanding as ever. His thumb rubbed light strokes against her cheek, and he brushed his lips against her temple. “It’s all right,” he said. She could feel his heart hammering in his chest, but his voice was steady. “Do you want me to stop?”
Attia knew that if she said yes, he would back away immediately. Xanthus was the kind of man who asked rather than took, who begged the gods to forgive his sins with whispered breath. He was the man who’d fallen to his knees before her, who had held her close until the night was over, who would give anything to keep her whole.
So when he started to pull away and the cold rushed back in, Attia wrapped her arms around his neck to keep him against her.
“No,” she whispered. “Don’t stop.”
*